Wrestlevania

Badlands... fuck. Almost enough to make me prise apart the jaws of the Castle Vania coffers -- and it's me burfday a fortnight today. Hmm...

No, it's a retail title by Bizarre Creations (Project Gotham series) and SEGA. The demo's pretty well featured, although I think they missed a trick only including one character and one level. Certainly the level limit's not such a biggy. But, having shown off those splendid-looking characters, only then giving you one to play with seems daft to me.

Agreed. But if they took the linearity out of the conversation mechanism, that little stat popping up would suddenly become much more interesting I think... I also think the fact they had to colour-coordinate the Charm and Intimidate options is more than a little patronising, too. What purpose does that serve, really? It's a rather brain-dead way of illustrating your character's adeptness if you ask me, especially in light of how considered and mature the dialogue consistently appears to be for all other answers.

Fine. I just want to see this stuff first hand whilst I'm still playing it, rather than trying to absorb other people's opinions and impressions of it after the fact. Question: Is there a rigorous structure to the conversation options and how they affect your various stats? For example: if I always choose the upper right-most dialogue option from the disc, will it always be my Paragon attribute that gets boosted? I'm sincerely hoping not, because then it's more about the mechanics of the decision making, rather than the decision itself. I don't have any firm reason to believe conversational structures are quite so regulated, but there are a few suggestions here and there that this may well be the case. Insight, please!

Well, I had a save point about half-an-hour before the "encounter" so I reloaded and tried the ungrateful act instead.

Played a bit more tonight, but I apparently bypassed sexy time:

I'd say you're right. The most striking aspects of the CryTEK human characters would appear to be the lighting and the texturing. As stills, they're photorealistic. There are still some illusion-breaking artifacts when the character's facial features are animated (the "fleshy eyelids" slide for example). But that final comp shot is, well... wow.

Mmm, rubbery! No, no - that's the whole point of the uncanny valley. The closer to a human being something animatronic appears, the more anything unusual about its nature becomes accentuated. You're quite right (in my opinion) -- I'm not even remotely convinced, regardless of how good their animation system is.

For posterity's sake, like.

Indeed, those quoted are much more articulate than the article author would have you believe earlier on. Fair game I say, and I certainly don't agree with Amazon.com's removal of them.

Click the goat and rest assured that Yahtzee is perhaps just a little inconsistent if anything. Really liked this one -- and don't skip the end.

Very nice.

It's pretty fucking awful at the best of times if you ask me, particularly in the cutscenes.

I love things like this, so thanks for the tip.

I'm exactly the same; I was expecting the loads to take absolutely ages, but they've not been anything like that. I think people may be overexagerating because the walls of the lift shaft do usually tick by at a painfully slow rate. But otherwise, I'm fine with those. What I'm not fine with is that the game has locked up cold on my twice now, meaning I've had to redo sections which is really aggravating -- especially if it's a particularly chatty section. I'm bothered by the idea that if I'm not thorough in my questioning, I'm locking myself out of later content (even if it's "just" more side quests). I've not played Mass Effect for a few days now, but I might go back to it tonight/tomorrow and plough a few more hours into it. I'm looking forward to the alien gang-rape simulation at any rate, though I neglected to choose the number, colour and size of my characters genitals at the beginning...

Well, they've certainly got the pots of cash to back this up should it turn nasty. Fingers crossed it actually does become libelous, as Fox have meticulously fucked themselves over on this one before it even reaches court. Good for EA I say; it's about fucking time this industry started properly defending itself. If there's a retraction issued on live TV, I hope the gaming press runs with it and makes a lot of noise.

Their "free to play" model is such: You can play any available track a maximum of 3 times for free, after which you're prompted to either subscribe or buy the music to hear it again. There's a revised subscription model coming which enables the unlimited playback option. What's great is that Last.fm have pledged that they will be paying artists directly.

We did; it's a difficult film in the way that it takes effort and consideration to really appreciate the various stories being told, how where they fit together and where they don't, and also what the overall essence of the film is about. It's also darkly humorous too, but not obscurely or obscenely so -- it's actually quite stark and surprising in how it comes out in the conversations. If it were to win any Oscars though, I'd say definitely for cinematography and sound; they're absolutely fantastic and a true pleasure to experience. As for the acting, it's all good - occasionally very good - but it's nothing really outstanding or career-defining for anyone involved. So, I definitely recommend this film to anyone who's after something either more challenging or artistic than your usual cinema fair.

Bastard Microsoft took their bastard BC update servers bastard offline last bastard night, right in the middle of me doing the necessary bastard update. So I didn't get to play it after all. Bastards! Might give it a shot tonight, as I managed to get the download to complete first thing this morning and the intro played fine as a result. Looking forward to experiencing how Namco have handled first person embodiment in Breakdown, having read a fair bit about it [see OP] and watched some more gameplay videos in the meantime.

Right, I'm about to trot down to our local independent cinema and watch No Country for Old Men with a work chum. Quite excited actually. Shall report back later (or tomorrow).

Steaming filth, that's even more impressive that I first appreciated. :tup:

Insufficient input -- please extrapolate.

The deciding factor is this: truck-loads of a massive corporation's dollars being spent on advertising it. And yes she's a whore, because she's being used by Fox to do what Fox wants.

Why? Oh, I see; because it lets you conveniently sidestep the truth, whilst simultaneously distracting the slower viewers from the fact you've just been easily and consumately humiliated on live television. Right on, expert! You shallow, moronic, spotlight-basking whore.

Negative?! Facists.